david_c

It might just be that they're playing "switch", where 2♦ shows hearts and 2♥ shows diamonds. More generally, after any overcall you can switch the bids in the two unbid suits. But that's not always sensible: a reasonable rule is "when the two switched bids would be at the same level", or "whenever they overcall in a black suit". Or maybe just in a couple of specific auctions. I agree with whereagles about the effectiveness of this: it seems like an improvement, but not a huge one. For what it's worth, this transfer is also a part of my Polish Club system: we play both 2♣ and 2♦ as transfers, and have to commit to the three-level if we want to show clubs. This only applies after a 1♠ overcall.

I voted for 3♥. Despite what Ken says, I think what people actually do here in Acol-land is bid 2♥ only if at the minimum end of the 15-17 range. Decent 16s raise to three. And despite being a bit flat this hand is a rather good 16.

Well, I don't think the actual result is very instructive, but just for amusement value, here is what happened: [hv=d=w&v=e&n=s2hq3d98543ckq654&s=sakqjthat97dk76c2]133|200|Scoring: MP[/hv] W N E S 1NT p p Dbl p p 2♦! p 2♥ 3♣ p 3♠ p 4♦ p 4♥ p 5♣ p p Dbl p p 5♦ Dbl AP That was -800 for a well-deserved outright national bottom. OK, I realise there was more wrong with this auction than just the 3♠ bid, but I thought that was the most interesting decision. Please don't criticise my partner too much - it was only a pick-up partnership after all. (And we did score a pleasing 66% overall despite this.)

This pair was playing "exit transfers" which means redouble shows clubs, 2♣ is for diamonds, etc. That's very popular amongst the club players in this part of the country. (I did warn you this was a simultaneous pairs!) After a direct double I suppose I can see the logic behind this system. I don't think it makes much sense after a fourth-seat double, but at least they were on the same wavelength. (And they won't be giving it up after this board!)

Ah, fair enough, that would help a lot. But I'm fairly sure that this partner would take double as showing diamonds, like Mike said.

One from last night's simultaneous pairs: [hv=d=w&v=e&s=sakqjthat97dk76c2]133|100|Scoring: MP[/hv] W N E S 1NT p p Dbl p p 2♦! p 2♥ 3♣ p ? 1NT is weak (12-14); 2♦ was a transfer to hearts. What's your call?

Well, here are the original posts: I quote this here because I think this "Martel says that PC is unsound" thing has become a bit of an urban myth. Looking at it here, it's clear just how flimsy the evidence was. Not that I have a problem with that - personally I'm happy to dismiss things without ever having played against them at all - but for the amount of times it's been quoted you'd think it was a bit more substantial. For what it's worth I disagree with his point 3 - getting a penalty from the weak option is much harder than it might appear and IMO you're better off not worrying about that unless it falls into your lap. The rest of the advice is fine. Not that this has anything to do with the 2-level openers we were being asked about. Sorry about that.

I suspect 1♠ will work out better on this particular hand, if partner knows to expect this sort of thing. But my preferred style is to open 1NT on nearly all 5332s when in range, and this hand is in range (obviously worth an upgrade), so I guess I'd open 1NT.

I gave #2 a 9 and think this one is harder. There is absolutely no way I'd find this at the table. I might find a criss-cross if it was my only chance, but here with a finesse available I wouldn't even notice the possibility.

Playing offline with an English partner I'd expect it to be Michaels. Playing with a BBF partner I'd expect it to be natural (but less confidently, at least until I read the first few replies here). Otherwise I don't know. For what it's worth, I think Michaels is the better agreement in this specific auction.

The point is that if you were to give literally "all the information" then that would be an awful lot of information. For describing an opening bid when playing with a regular partner, it would take many minutes. So that isn't what happens. It can't be. Instead, you give an initial explanation, in one or two sentences, and the opponents can ask for more detail if they want it. So it's not about "concealing" information. It's about which information is an essential part of the initial explanation, and which can be safely left until later. Concealing a 4-card major is normally unusual enough that you would have to inform the oppoenents immediately, but it must depend on the context. If the bidding goes 1♣! : 1NT! in Precision, then I would accept "Shows a game-forcing balanced hand" as an initial explanation; I don't think people would assume it denies a 4-card major. The forcing NT may or may not be similar to this.

Surely you are aware that that isn't how things work. People don't recite the entirety of their system notes every time a bid is made. Frances gave some nice examples of roughly where the "fuzzy" line is drawn. I don't have particularly strong feelings about whether the original agreement needs to be explained. But for you to deny that there is a line to be drawn at all, that just doesn't help anybody.

I would agree that it is not "general bridge knowledge". But does that necessarily mean it must be explained as part of the initial explanation? I would have thought that this is the sort of thing that would only be mentioned on further questioning by the opponents. Actually, let me amend that. I should have said: (i) If the bidding has gone 1♥ - 1NT, and the opponents ask about 1NT, then I would not expect the initial explanation to mention the possibility of a weak hand with 4 spades and 3 hearts. (ii) Once the bidding has gone 1♥ - 1NT , 2m - 2♥, and the opponents ask what responder has shown, I do think it ought to be mentioned at this point.

I would agree that it is not "general bridge knowledge". But does that necessarily mean it must be explained as part of the initial explanation? I would have thought that this is the sort of thing that would only be mentioned on further questioning by the opponents.

Surely you want your 3-level bids to be very specific. Partner is unlimited in strength and shape, so you don't want to go around pre-empting him unless you have something very descriptive to say.

For me it's #2 which is the automatic double. #1 and #3 are both borderline.

I've been trying out the new partnership bidding. (I already had the dealer program on my computer so being able to use it on BBO is fantastic!) I found a couple of very minor problems: (i) I typed the explanation "!s" of a bid in the web-client, and it was correctly displayed as "♠" there, but for my "partner" watching in the old windows version the exclamation mark got chopped off and it appeared as "s". It seems the same thing happens for any explanation that begins with an exclamation mark. (ii) GIB doesn't like you alerting your bids, and will sometimes refuse to call if you do (for instance, if you alert a bid but don't type an explanation). [OK, if my oppo alerted a call and refused to provide an explanation then I'd probably refuse to call too B) ]

I'd say this doesn't exist unless you've discussed something.

They certainly said that they preferred not to change. It's unclear whether they actually said they preferred the current rules. Indeed it's unclear whether the CC actually knows what the current rules are.

2NT is 2 bids higher than 2H. Over 2H you can bid 2S or 2NT as an artificail ask or relay. Lower and more efficient than over 2NT. I also prefer the style where you rebid 2H on this hand, but I don't agree that this is the reason. For me it is because if you play 2NT as showing a minimum balanced hand then your 2H and 2NT rebids are too similar. You already have a 2H rebid which includes a variety of balanced and semi-balanced hands, so you don't need another bid which covers the same ground. Let's say opener has a minimum balanced hand with a small doubleton spade. Presumably he doesn't want to rebid 2NT with this, so he has to bid 2H.* So now you're going to need a way to show a balanced hand (without a spade stop) after 1♥:2♦,2♥:2♠. Well, however you decide to do this, you could easily use the same thing when you have a balanced hand with a spade stop. So, while in principle Stephen is right to be worried that "The more bids you lump into 2H, the more bids you need afterwards to untangle them all", in practice you can include the 2NT hands in 2H without having to find any new sequences to show them. Really, a minimum balanced hand is extremely easy to show after a catchall 2M bid - you just keep making minimum no-trumpy noises. Admittedly, you might find hands where it would be useful to have the negative inference that 2M won't be a balanced hand without side-suit weakness. But it's so much more useful to use 2NT for something that is genuinely "different" from the 2M rebid. Natural with extras is the usual choice, or you can play it as single-suited, or an artificial raise, or even some sort of transfer - whatever takes your fancy. Anything is better than just having two different ways to show the same hand. *If you do want to bid 2NT with a small doubleton spade - which I think is just weird - then change the example to a 2524.

Now, this is a bit of a sore point for me at the moment; but I'll have a go at answering the question anyway ... First of all, the definitions are always going to be slightly fuzzy. You can't expect to be able to write down a totally mechanical rule for deciding what category a double fits into. With that in mind, IMO the best way to approach it is to: 1. Give a rough explanation of what the terms "take-out" and "penalty" mean, plus two extra terms of your choice (let's say "optional" and "value-showing"). Make it obvious that these explanations aren't intended to be totally precise. (Though you could take the opportunity to clear up a few particular cases, if they fit in here more naturally than as separate examples). 2. Write your general rule in the form "Double is not alertable if it is take-out, penalty, or anything in between such as optional or value-showing. All other doubles are alertable." 3. Give specific examples of alertable and non-alertable doubles. I hope you have better luck than me.

It would be extremely useful, when operating vugraph, to be able to change the bidding without having to undo all the way back to the relevant point. Ideally, a right-click on a bid could bring up options: - Insert a pass at this point. - Change this call. - Delete this call. The first one seems particularly important. It's so easy to miss out a pass somewhere, then later lose track of the play because you had to redo a huge chunk of the auction in order to put it right. Most broadcasts seem to feature this happening at least once, and it's really painful to watch.

We haven't been told why the TD was called on the second hand. Did West's hand not match the explanation? We really need to know what West's hand was. It seems quite likely that there was no infraction.

What did partner have? Not being able to make 4♥ isn't such a surprise, but it seems unlucky to find that they can't make 3♠. I'd be more worried that they could make 4♠, and that my 4♥ might push them into it. Partner had something like ♠ xx ♥ Qxx ♦ AKQx ♣ KJxx and I suppose LHO must have been 6133.

OK, maybe it's too obvious then. Turns out that 4♥ has four top losers and opps having nothing on; I was worried I might have done too much.